Morning Earnings Roundup: Better Investing at Goldman Sachs

For the world's premier investment bank,
Goldman Sachs (
GS
)
hadn't had much luck investing of late. That changed this past
quarter.

Goldman Sachs swung to a third-quarter profit by boosting its
investment-banking revenue by 49% from a year ago. The bank's
overall earnings of $1.51 billion were a complete 180 from the
$393 million in losses it suffered in the third quarter of 2011.
Net revenue more than doubled to $8.35 billion.

Earnings per share of $2.85 were far greater than the
84-cents-per-share loss Goldman reported last year, and outpaced
analyst estimates of $2.12 per share. The earnings beat, plus a
four-cent hike in its quarterly dividend, has pushed GS shares up
close to 1% in early trading today.

Here's how two other companies that reported earnings this
morning fared:

Coca-Cola (
KO
):
The world's largest beverage maker reported a 3.9% bump in its
third-quarter earnings. Coke's earnings of 50 cents a share was
an improvement over the 48 cents a share the company earned a
year earlier; however, it trailed the 51 cents per share
analysts were expecting. As a result, the stock is down a
half-percent this morning.

Johnson & Johnson
(NYSE:JNJ):
Sales were up, but profits were down for this longtime consumer
staple/pharmaceutical company. Acquisition and research costs
pushed profits down 7.3%, but sales increased 6.5% thanks to
the company's recent purchase of medical-device maker Synthes.
Despite the profit decline, Johnson & Johnson's earnings
beat Wall Street estimates, pushing the shares up more than 1%
in early trading.